Italian wife faces jail for 'not doing housework'

An Italian woman could face up to six years in jail after her husband accused her of not doing enough cooking and cleaning.

Her husband made a complaint to the paramilitary Carabinieri police, saying his wife was slovenly, failed to put meals on the table and left their home in a dreadful mess.

Judicial authorities sent the matter to trial. The 42-year-old wife faces up to six years in prison if found guilty of "mistreatment within the family". The crime, article 572 in the Italian penal code, "punishes whoever mistreats a person in their family or a person entrusted to them for education, care or custody".

The woman's husband, 47, accused her of "bad management of domestic affairs", in a case that reinforces a cliched image of the harassed Italian housewife cooking and caring for small children while her husband puts his feet up.

The husband complained for the past two years he had been chronically neglected by his wife. She failed to clean the house, refused to cook and kicked him out of the bedroom.

The trial will start on October 12.

"It's a case that seems to have come from the 50s," commented Il Tempo newspaper.